Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher

Do not let the name fool, there isn’t anything about marine life in the book. The main character, T.J. Jones, is an adopted teenager who is smart, funny, and an all-around cool guy, who is incredibly humorous to read about. The story deals with a team of underdog swimmers, and T.J. just happens to be the only popular guy on the team. Acting as the wise-butt hero at times, this book had me stifling my own laughter because I was afraid someone would hear me guffaw too loudly.

Darwin Awards Books

For those who are not familiar with the Darwin Awards, they are a comical competition that relay the odd, stupid, and funny things people do in life, as well as the interesting outcomes of these actions. There are at least seven of these books by now, so the options are wide and the hilarity of man’s stupidity just continues to entertain readers. If for some reason you cannot finish one of the books, there is no harm in putting it aside to come back to it on another rainy day. The chapters do not have a sequence of events, so there is no plot to keep up with. You can read one funny story after another. Or, if you somehow finish one book in a day, there are more to read out of the series.

A Bad Beginning, A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snickett

Yes, it is part of a series, but what better day is there to try out a new series of books than on a rainy day? And, there is never a dull moment in A Bad Beginning, not to mention it is a relatively shorter book, which also makes it a quick read. Funny, exciting, and sometimes creepy, the Series of Unfortunate Events relays the story of the cruel Count Olaf, who is trying to take the inheritance of three incredibly talented orphaned children. Don’t knock it just because it’s in the young adult section; this book even has adults enthralled to read the whole series.

Short Stories by Nikolay Gogol

For those who want a fun, yet slightly more sophisticated read, the short stories by Nikolay Gogol never seem to disappoint. Although most short stories are a good pick for rainy days, Gogol’s are both deep and amusing at the same time. Stories like “The Nose” is so incredulous to have a nose as the supporting role, while “The Diary of a Madman” is so funny, I almost felt guilty as I laughed at the poor narrator. Gogol’s short stories are a bit longer than others, but you can still several with a day’s time. And, with a collection of shorts, it is easy to just put the rest of the book aside once you have finished a particular story. There is no commitment to reading all of the short stories if you do not have time.

Psych – A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read by William Rabkin

If you are a fan of the show, you are going to love the books, particularly this one. Although many popular shows are providing a series of books alongside their show, Psych is one of those shows that is both smart and funny at the same time, which is exactly what the books are like, too. A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read happens to be only 273 pages, which makes for a quick read with all of the dialogue and humorous activities.

As the curator of quotes for @EduifyQuotes on Twitter I have been scouring quotes websites across the internet in search of the very best literary quotes. As I have searched for the very best quotes I have encountered many quotes that are simply too provoking to tweet out without a warning first. You have heard this warning and decided to proceed.

I applaud your scandalous curiosity. Enjoy!

Anatole Broyard

“Sex almost always disappoints me in novels. Everything can be said or done now, and that’s what I often find: everything, a feeling of generality or dispersal. But in my experience, true sex is so particular, so peculiar to the person who yearns for it. Only he or she, and no one else, would desire so very much that very person under those circumstances. In fiction, I miss that sense of terrific specificity.”

Anthony Burgess

“Literature is all, or mostly, about sex.”

Robert Benchley

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.

Bennett Cerf

Coleridge was a drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was killed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman’s name out of a satire then wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to a writer–and if so, why?

Joan Didion

Writers are always selling somebody out.

Colin Greenland

Plotting is like sex. Plotting is about desire and satisfaction, anticipation and release. You have to arouse your reader’s desire to know what happens, to unravel the mystery, to see good triumph. You have to sustain it, keep it warm, feed it, just a little bit, not too much at a time, as your story goes on. That’s called suspense. It can bring desire to a frenzy, in which case you are in a good position to bring off a wonderful climax.

Plotting isn’t like sex, because you can go back and adjust it afterwards. Whether you plan your story beforehand or not, if the climax turns out to be the revelation that the mad professor’s anti-gravity device actually works, you must go back and silently delete all those flying cars buzzing around the city on page one. If you want to reveal something, you need to hide it properly first.

Stephen Leigh

That’s the essential goal of the writer: you slice out a piece of yourself and slap it down on the desk in front of you. You try to put it on paper, try to describe it in a way that the reader can see and feel and touch. You paste all your nerve endings into it and then give it out to strangers who don’t know you or understand you. And you will feel everything that happens to that story — if they like it, if they hate it. Because no matter how you try to distance yourself from it, to some degree you feel that if they hate it, they hate you.

Which isn’t the truth, you understand. At least you understand that in your head…but not always in your heart.

George Orwell

All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

Tom Wolfe

I think I am starving for publication: I love to get published; it maddens me not to get published. I feel at times like getting every publisher in the world by the scruff of the neck, forcing his jaws open, and cramming the Mss down his throat — ‘God-damn you, here it is – I will and must be published.’
You know what it means – you’re a writer and you understand it. It’s not just ‘the satisfaction of being published.’ Great God! It’s the satisfaction of getting it out, or having that, so far as you’re concerned, gone through with it! That good or ill, for better or for worse, it’s over, done with, finished, out of your life forever and that, come what may, you can at least, as far as this thing is concerned, get the merciful damned easement of oblivion and forgetfulness.

Feedback

Do you know of any other scandalous quotes? Which quote from the list above to you think was the most scandalous of all?

By Julia Jackson

When I was a senior in high school, a real live writer came to my English class. She was a successful novelist, a middle-aged woman who later went on to win a series of literary awards. After she spoke about her latest novel, my teacher opened the class up to questions. I raised my hand and asked, “What advice do you have for young people who want to support themselves as writers?”

The author, who has since gone on to become a renowned writer and somewhat of a local hero in my hometown, smiled grimly and said: “Marry rich.” I put my hand down and before I could respond, someone else asked a question. Class resumed and it seemed that no one else was bristling as much as I was. How could this be true? This was the twenty-first century! Surely there were better ways of being a professional writer and a healthy individual in the world. The author both crashed my confidence and instilled a lifelong desire to prove her wrong, all in one fell swoop.

Just how do you become a professional writer? And how do writers combine their technical skills with careers that support themselves? Well, there are a lot of ways to do it. Welcome to Writing Careers: Real Tips from Real Writers. Over the next few weeks, we will be profiling professional writers who work in various media.

Our first featured writer is April Halprin Wayland a farmer turned author. Her newest book, New Year at the Pier—a Rosh Hashanah Story, received a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly. Her novel in poems, Girl Coming in For a Landing, won Pennsylvania State University’s Lee Bennett Hopkins award for Poetry and the Myra Cohn Livingston Award for Poetry. She has written three other books for children: To Rabbittown, The Night Horse, and It’s Not My Turn to Look for Grandma. She’s the co-founder of Authors and Illustrators for Children and of the Children’s Authors Network, has taught in over 400 schools in the United States and abroad, and has been an instructor at UCLA Extension’s Writer’s Program for over a decade. She took time out of her busy schedule to sit down with Eduify and answer some questions about her life as a writer.

What would you define as “good” writing?

AHW: Good writing is writing that tells the author’s deep truth—it’s the author-in-the-raw. I love Anne Lamott’s writing—it’s as if she is standing at the top of a mountain and rips off her shirt, shouting “Look, here are my scars!” As I read about hers, I reach up and touch my own.

It seems that the more embarrassed I am to share something (however disguised as it is in fiction or poetry), the more it strikes a nerve in my readers. My mentor, renowned children’s book author Myra Cohn Livingston, with whom I studied for twelve years, said “Tell me something new. Or tell me something familiar in a new way. Make it fresh.”  When poet Deborah Chandra wrote about a “storm / caught on a paper cone,” I could never look at cotton candy again.

What has been your favorite project? How did you achieve your objective?

AHW: My favorite is always the one I’m working on or the one I just sent off. I just sent off a novel in poems to my agent. My objective was to write something that touches young adults who are struggling with issues of fat, food, faith, friends or family. A pretty broad constituency! I hope I achieved my objective. How? By being honest, honest as I possible could be. Period.

Who or what inspires you?

AHW: I am inspired by great anything—by the layers of greens and grays on the trail I hiked last week, by great writing and funny writing and children’s authors and poets, and also by political cartoons because they are visual haiku; so condensed. I am inspired by the young adult novel When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. I also just finished reading the adult novel The Help by Kathryn Stockett, a rich, satisfying read and her first novel.

Really wonderful mosaics, my mother’s command of classical piano music, original, playful landscaping, songwriters whose words move me, whimsical art, banjo players, business people who think completely outside the box and make me think “Wowee—what a great way to look at that!”

I heard former President Clinton speak recently; he showed me how to think about world problems from a completely different framework.

All of this inspires me.

What tips can you offer young writers?

AHW: 

1) Take a deep breath.

2) Dive down to a place where you’re most embarrassed to go.

3) Bring onto the page what you find there.

4) Turn things on their heads—find a new way of looking at them.

5) Hold nothing back. Be very, very generous to your audience, your teachers, and your  fellow writers.

Know that you’re not alone—we’re all scared. Who do I think I am? Why would anyone listen to what my insane brain is thinking? I’m a fraud and they’re going to pull all the covers off me. Believe me, we all think those same thoughts.

When I had writer’s block one year, someone said to me, “Aspire to be what you’re most afraid to be. I realized I was really afraid of writing something ordinary. So I put a sign on my door that read “Aspire to mediocrity.” And anyone can write mediocre stuff, right? It got me to write again. I do a lot of what I call circling-the-chair—working on everything but my current project—but eventually I settle down. BIC—Bottom-in-chair—is the only way I get work done.

What piece of advice do you wish someone had given you?

AHW: After my first book, To Rabbittown, was published, I discovered that children’s book authors make money by publishing…but also by doing school visits. I love doing school visits—teaching, traveling, and, let’s face it, getting treated like a movie star by teachers and students. So I did a LOT of traveling, speaking, teaching and PR stuff early on.

I wish someone had taken me by the shoulders and said, “Stay in your writing garden, plant more books, don’t jump into the speaking waters so quickly.”

Or, BIC for short.

There you have it—the best way to succeed is to keep your bottom in your chair! April has an excellent wealth of resources for young writers on her website at www.aprilwayland.com. While you’re there, check out her previous publications, as well as her links to literary and political organizations.

Credits:

Illustration: Upside Down: See the World in a New Way drawing by April Halprin Wayland

Photo Credit (top) for picture of April Halprin Wayland. Taken by: Webb Burns

Stay tuned for our next Real Live Writer!

I love Joyce as much as anyone else does. Heck, I’ll take your Joyce, and I’ll raise you a Samuel Beckett. I adore tough modernist literature as much as the next dude, but I’ll admit that I (a twenty-something former English major — I’m not that much older than you, dear student, even though in your eyes I might be ancient) have trouble relating to Estragon on a personal level. We speak a different language now. We are stuck in a post-modern fugue, and the entire landscape of literature has changed.

Luckily, there are many writers that consistently produce masterpiece-level literature and write through a modern lense. These writers talk about things like television, anti-depressants, and the Internet. Finally, someone who speaks our language! While we may not read them (yet) as a part of the canon of literature, these hip writers will one day be the Ezra Pounds of our generation. They are people that you should know and read, and here are 5 of our favorites:

Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith is a young, brilliant British writer whose 2000 novel White Teeth planted her firmly on our literary map. Her work is characterized by its multicultural, optimistic perspective, and a kind of ecstatic radiant joy in language practically explodes from her pages. She is a multi-racial, multicultural writer whose novels provide a poignant, often hilarious look into the immigrant experience in the English speaking part of the world. She is staggeringly prolific too, having written 3 novels in the course of a decade, and everything she writes is consistently amazing. Read this excerpt from On Beauty and tell me if you’re unimpressed (if you are, you are a liar).

Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Lethem writes hip novels like Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude, and young people love his work because he talks about things like music, popular culture, and youth culture, and because his novels provides an accurate glimpse into the lives of savvy young urbanites trying to find their place in the world. He’s also really interested in superheros and comics (Fortress of Solitude is about two young people who discover a magical ring that gives them superhero power). No wonder all his novels are getting optioned into movies. Currently, Edward Norton is adapting Motherless Brooklyn into a film, so watching Lethem on the big screen is not far behind.

Lorrie Moore

We love Lorrie Moore. We really, really love Lorrie Moore. And what we really, really, really love about Lorrie Moore are her puns. This woman is the punniest writer that we still take seriously, and some of the most hilarious puns ever inserted into novels come straight from her. Like this one

I loved to say quasi. I was saying it now a lot, instead of sort of, or kind of, and it had become a tic. “I am quasi ready to go,” I would announce. Or, “I’m feeling a bit quasi today.” Murph called me Quasimodo. Or Kami-quasi. Or wild and quasi girl. “Or quasi-something,” I added. What my father really was was not quasi-retired but quasi-drunk.

Basically, she’s hilarious. And her writing really delves into the psychology of being young and confused in the world. Her short stories often focus on the experiences of young single people in large urban environments looking for love, friendship, and a source of meaning in their very modern, yet sad, yet hilarious lives. Teleport yourself to a bookstore and buy something by her if you haven’t already. You’ll thank us later.

Junot Diaz

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was one of the best novels we’ve encountered this decade. What novelist other than Diaz could write so convincingly from the mouth of a virginal, awkward geek like Oscar (who loves science fiction and video games) and still make it read off the page like beautiful poetry? Junot Diaz is one mega-talented writer, and his work is startingly brutal, intelligent, honest, and exquisitely gorgeous. His prose, even when discussing something as un-literary as a woman’s behind from the vantage point of an over-enthusiastic teenage boy, never comes off as less than poetic.

David Foster Wallace

What can we say about the genius David Foster Wallace that hasn’t been stated already? His death was untimely and tragic, and robbed the world without one of the greatest minds of the century. Reading Wallace is like coming face-to-face with your own mortality and human limitations. What he could do with language is no short of miraculous. I suspect that Wallace was put on this earth by extra-terrestrial, more advanced species as a kind of experiment. I won’t go on any further than to say that anything and everything Wallace touched will one day become canonical (and would even argue that it is canonical, seeing as I did read him in college as a part of my curriculum while he was still very much alive). He writes about things of interest to young people, like television, popular culture, tennis, fat people in the Midwest, and even adult entertainment (his coverage of the AVN Awards is both sad and hysterically funny). If we had to convince you to read just one writer on this list, we’d put Wallace first. He’s that good.